Beginning this week is Emerson’s fourth annual Teach-In on Sustainability. This year, organizers are hoping to get students more engaged than ever in contributing to a sustainable future using their strengths in arts, communication, and comedy—the latter of which is this year’s focus.
The Teach-In started on Wednesday and will extend over three days, packed with speakers, workshops, and open classes. Nejem Raheem, chair of the marketing communications department and one of the creators behind the Teach-In, said he wants the conference to restructure how people view and talk about sustainability. He said that when nonprofits and governments talk about sustainability issues, the language used tends to be depressing.
“It paralyzes them because you feel like you can’t do anything about it. Scaring people just scares them into inaction, it’s not motivating,” Raheem said.
He says that that’s why this year’s Teach-In team, including Paul Pegher of the School of Communications, and Jennifer Lamy and Jacqui Moy at Emerson Sustainability, prominently centered the Comedic Arts Department. The events will attempt to approach sustainability topics in a light and engaging way and reduce anxiety about sustainability and climate issues.
Raheem, who has over 20 years of experience in the field of environmental economics, defines sustainability as “meeting the needs of current generations in a way that doesn’t adversely affect the needs of future generations.” He pointed to the United Nations Development Program, for which his dad worked for, and their 17 Sustainable Development Goals as proof that, although the understanding of sustainability keeps morphing, it should be focused on maintaining the environment for future generations. The SDGs aim to create “peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.”
While the focus will be on bringing a comedic layer to its storytelling, Raheem said the Teach-In also draws across a number of different fields and interests to encourage people to consider how sustainability relates to their expertise.
“Part of how you can work in the field of sustainability is to adapt to what the local conditions are,” Raheem said, adding that Emerson’s focus as an arts and communications school helped to inform the curation of the conference. “All these things connect to sustainability. At the very least, they connect to the ability to communicate about it and to get people to do things differently or better.”
The Teach-In’s keynote speech, hosted by professor of Theatre and Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado, Beth Osnes-Stoedefalke, and assistant professor of comedic studies Matt McMahan, will take a different approach than a traditional speech. Instead, Osnes-Stoedefalke and McMahan will take to the stage in the Semel Theater dressed in costume, approaching conversations on the climate crisis from a comedic light.
“I’m an academic. I go to these conferences all the time, and they’re so fucking boring,” Raheem said. “I’m more engaged in social interaction than [lecture], so I love it when things kind of break out of the mold and in a way that’s engaging and fun.”
While the Teach-In on Sustainability started as an event four years ago, the practice of sustainability has already been implemented into Emerson at a granular level longer than that, Raheem said—even if people don’t always think about it.
“Turns out [in] every department, at least 50% of the syllabi have some significant connection to the sustainability agenda,” he said. “We started finding out that a ton of people do stuff that’s connected to sustainability, but they don’t always think about it that way.”
Emerson has made institutional efforts to move towards more sustainable policies. In 2007, Emerson signed a commitment to work towards carbon neutrality by 2030. Since then, campus buildings have reduced their carbon emissions by 80%.
Despite this, Raheem says there are still barriers at Emerson with sustainability, referencing past initiatives that relied on anticipated success in the present. These initiatives were contingent on anticipated growth in student population. In 2014, the ELA campus was built, and in 2019, Emerson expanded the Little Building. Both building upgrades were done to accommodate a larger student population, Raheem said, but in the following years, Emerson has not exhibited the growth these past actions hoped to predict. With an enrollment shortfall over the past two years and layoffs of over 30 faculty members, Raheem said it can be difficult to look past the recent setbacks.
“All of a sudden it’s like, oh, well, now what? The point is more that we don’t have a [sustainable] mindset of thinking past that,” Raheem said.
There are steps, however, to look towards the future again, Raheem notes, citing the strategic plan that was put into motion this past semester by President Jay Bernhardt. The strategic plan aligns with the concept of sustainability through its goals of strengthening the future of the community.
“I know [the Teach-In] fits with the strategic plan and the president’s vision for where the college is going, so I’m not worried about that,” he added.
Ahead of the three-day-long event, Raheem hopes Emerson community members will discover new methods of applying sustainability to their lives and careers.
“An actionable takeaway of some kind would be great, some kind of reduction of anxiety or a feeling of greater agency or engagement, you know, would be great,” he said. “Even just realizing that there is some other way of doing something would be cool, [and], you know, get a few laughs along the way.”
